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SUPREMACY of MAN.

PASSAGE.

AND GOD SAID TO NOAH, THE FEAR OF YOU, AND THE

DREAD OF YOU, SHALL BE UPON EVERY BEAST OF THE EARTH, AND UPON EVERY FOWL OF THE AIR; UPON ALL THAT MOVE TH UPON THE EARTH, AND

UPON ALL THE FISHES OF THE SEA : IN TO YOUR HAND ARE THEY DELIVERED.

WHAT

HAT a privilege hath man! What fuperiority what dominion! Yet he who thought proper to deliver all the creatures, (whether winged or footed) which creep beneath the grafs, or foar into the air, into the hand of man, affuredly defigned to fecure to them, a friend, in the mafter, and a protector, in the fovereign. I give them all to thy care, says the Deity; they are thine, for pleasure and for food; but create not, I conjure thee, create not, unneceffary mifery: from the unwieldy

unwieldy elephant even to the emmet, haft thou authority; yet, ufe it like a man. To every atom is allowed a certain portion of fenfation, and every atom is born to a certain degree of enjoyment: deprive it not of this, but rather courteously promote the gratification, than prevent it. I, the almighty Parent, have bestowed the inferior creatures upon thee, my favourite work: for what reasons thou art thus diftinguished in the scale, is a fecret not to be examined: flattering enough it is, that thou art diftinguifhed. But though all things are in fubjection, nothing was born to flavery. Scorn to be the tyrant, and the very fowls of the air fhall peck from thy hand: only deferve thy eminence, and enjoy it. Such, doubtless, is the meaning of this verfe; but the general practice seems as if it were understood literally for the fear and dread of the animal world is now, indeed, upon every beast of the earth; and the tyranny of man is too frequently exerted upon all that moveth. The fear and dread, here spoken of, is rather the reverence and obe

:

dience which the beftial fhall pay to the human nature, than that terrifying fenfation which fhall drive the brute from the prefence of man. There is fomething inhofpitable in thus exerting an undue feverity over the creatures of our convenience: they are fatted, indeed, to fall for our fubfiftance they toil, refresh themselves a while, and toil again; or else they slumber and feed beneath our eye, and, as it were, plead eloquently, each in his own language, for our guardianship. When we lead them to the last agony, ah ! let it not be in triumph; nor, as one life is facrificed for another, as the blood of the animal is shed for the support of the man, let us not, in the mean time, render the little allotment of their existence more painful, by withholding from them that fympathy, to which whatever is delivered to our hands, has a right to claim from our hearts.

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STORY of ABRAHAM and Lor.

PASSAGE.

AND THERE WAS A STRIFE BETWEEN ABRAHAM'S HERDMEN AND LOT'S HERDMEN.

DOMESTIC altercations began to

perplex families in the very child

hood of time; the blood of a brother was fhed, even before the affinity became known. But with how much tenderness and good fenfe doth Abraham here prevent the disagreement which had well nigh arisen, as is but too commonly the cafe, from the quarrel of two fervants. The heart is eafily affected by circumftances in private life, and the conduct of Abraham is, in many points, fo admirable, that the tranfactions of this fingle patriarch are of fufficient confequence to furnish a very volu

minous,

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